Reservation Number : 29324
Property Name : Rock Chimney
Reservation Date : 07/28/2021 AM -
Total Fish/Sizes : 14 with 4 @ 17-18" ; most 14-15"
Lures Used : Pop-R and dropshot

I arrived at Rock Chimney at 6:30 to absolutely calm conditions but plenty of flying bugs. I tried my typical starting spot with several moving lures without getting a single strike.  I moved to a very shallow flat near the corner with sparse vegetation sticking up and got onto a topwater bite.  Every hit was on a stationary Pop-R.  A moving Pop-R or a buzzbait or a frog was ignored. I even attracted a bird.  A kingfisher dove on my lure and picked it up a couple of feet before realizing its “fakeness” and dropping it without getting hooked.  The strikes were of the slow roll variety rather than the explosive type and I landed two skinny 18 inchers, two fatter 17 inchers, and two smaller bass before the herd arrived.  They wanted to get to the water exactly where I was.  I held them off for a few minutes but could almost feel them breathing down my neck.  Once a calf left momma to get closer to the water, I decided I didn’t want to be between them and moved over 15 feet.  That started the rush to the water and I retreated further, giving up the flat to cavorting bathing beauties.

I eventually found some more bass in the indent with the overhanging trees.  Here, all they would hit was a dropshot with a finese worm. Stick worms or trick worms were simply not acceptable.  These bass were in the 10” – 15” size range. I fished most of the lake but every bass came from one of these two spots. Heat and a slow bite chased me off at 11:30 with a total of 14 landed.

The tank is full and the water is stained with suspended algae (typical for this tank).  This was probably one of the calmest mornings that I have ever fished.  The flat calm just kept on and on.  The first micro-ripples appeared periodically about 11 AM but never covered more than a quarter of the pond.  I think this really supressed the moving bait bite.